Baseball is still the game, even if I'm a Mariner fan

I suspect I'm like a lot of Seattle Mariner fans this summer, suffering through a dismal effort while agreeing that Manager Eric Wedge's youth movement is the right idea.

I turn on just about every game with hopes that something good will happen. Maybe Ichiro will overcome his age and recapture his prime.

Maybe Justin Smoak or Carlos Peguero will get a hold of one. I don't want to miss the day Smoak hits the upper deck or Peguero launches one out of the park.

But mostly the summer has been abject disappointment. Ichiro appears to be on his last legs, and Chone Figgins and Jack Cust are still on the roster.

So it was with pleasure that I picked up the book "And God said, 'Play ball'" at my daughter's home in Walla Walla last weekend. She'll pass it on to me later, but I got a little preview.

The book was written by Gary Graf of Seattle. Like me, he is a Catholic and a baseball nut.

Graf says his book is about parallels between the Bible and baseball. But, so far, it appears to be about growing up with the San Francisco Giants after birth in 1958.

I can relate to Graf. I was one of the few Brooklyn Dodger fans who was excited they were coming to Los Angeles in 1958. Living in the Yakima Valley, I knew my chances of ever watching my Dodgers live had improved.

Sadly, I never did make it to Chavez Ravine. And in 1977 I became a Mariner fan. The closest I ever got to the Dodgers after that was an interview with former Dodger Tom Paciorek, then with the Mariners.

There was reason for Graf to appreciate the Giants of that time. They had Willie Mays in center field, Willie McCovey at first base and Juan Marichal on the mound. They were tough.

But they weren't tough enough for the Dodgers of that time. LA won the World Series in 1959, 1963 and 1965 and played in the 1966 fall classic.

The latter three of those years coincided with the prime of the great left-hander Sandy Koufax. He was 25-5 (1.88 ERA) in '63, 26-8 (2.04 ERA) in '65 and 27-9 (1.73 ERA) in '66. And it seemed he set major league strikeout records every game.

I knew the Dodger pitching rotation like clockwork. Every fourth evening, just as the sun went down, I went out to our 1955 Olds 98 and tuned in KFI Los Angeles.

The game would be in the fifth inning or so - I couldn't get it before dark - and Koufax would be on his sixth or seventh strikeout. The great Vin Scully was calling the game. He made me feel as if I were sitting in Dodger Stadium.

Most often, when I left the car and went inside to get some sleep, the house was dark. All of my family was in deep slumber. It was a grand time for the Dodgers and for me.

After the '60s, I hardly knew a Dodger.

Early in his book, Graf writes about Seals Stadium, which the Giants used until Candlestick Park was built. They left New York without a plan and had to start in a 22,900-seat stadium.

The Seattle Pilots, this state's first entry in the major leagues, started their lone season, 1969, in Sick's Stadium. It had 17,000 seats for opening day. It was expanded to 25,000 before the season ended.

There was a lot written about the challenges the Pilots faced, and very little of it was positive. I didn't care. I was excited about having a major league team.

I went to a Pilot game with a cousin who was visiting from Montana. I loved it. Never having been in a major league park, I could find nothing wrong with Sick's Stadium.

We lost the game, but I got to see Tommy Davis live. It didn't matter that he was on his way out.

Davis had been a great hitter with the Dodgers of the early and mid-1960s and was that era's Mr. Double. He hit one for me that night.

I also got to see Frank Howard, a 6-7, 260-pound slugger who'd hit 31 homers for the Dodgers in 1962. Playing for the Washington Senators, he hit a line drive so hard off the center field wall that the Seattle outfielder held him to a single.

I'm looking forward to the rest of "And God said, 'Play ball.'" I'm sure I'll find more memories among the pages.